Baby Girl

What started as a personal quest to unravel the mysteries of birth and death became central to my professional work as an adult.

In the years after, states passed laws requiring that babies be delivered by a licensed medical doctor and banning the practice of lay midwifery. Especially impacted by these new regulations were granny midwives, African American women who had, for generations, attended the births of babies of all races throughout the South. These women were less l

compelling need to heal old childhood wounds.

“Why don’t you tell me about your life, like a mini autobiography: where you were born, who raised you, what you were like as a kid, major life milestones, all the way up to the present day.” Once I know a patient’s story—the forces that shaped them to create the person I see before me—animosity evaporates in the warmth of empathy.

I am gathering my observations in a letter. When my granddaughter reaches her late teens or early twenties, I will make sure that my letter finds its way to her, with a preface something like this: “Here is a sketch of who you were from your earliest days in this world. It is not a definitive picture—only you can draw that. But it was sketched by a

Every doctor has his or her own personal origin myth, a story we tell about how and why we embarked on the profession.